The top House Democrat has put President Donald Trump on blast over higher price hikes expected to result from sweeping new tariffs on over 90 countries, which came into effect on Thursday after the Trump administration failed to negotiate new trade deals before a Wednesday deadline.
“Donald Trump’s tariffs are raising prices,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on Thursday. “The extremists promised to lower costs. Instead. Republican policies are making your life more expensive.”
Jeffries’ comments stand in contrast to Trump, who praised tariffs as powering a “golden age” last week, in spite of the burden that customers are already feeling.
The new tariffs also land amid a spate of poor economic news caused by other Trump tariffs.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that nearly $12 billion in global losses for the automotive industry are directly tied to Trump tariffs. In recent months, major U.S. automakers like General Motors and Stellantis, which oversees Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep, have reported to lose billions in profits because of Trump’s tariffs.
As a major economic sector, the auto industry employs thousands of people and powers numerous other industries (like advertising) as well as thousands of other companies involved in the industry’s supply chain. The struggles it faces will almost certainly have downstream effects.
Trump’s tariffs have also slammed into the defense industry. On Thursday, Swiss politicians began a push to cancel an order of dozens of F-35A fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. Switzerland is facing a new 39% tariff rate from Trump.
“A country which throws rocks at us in trade shouldn’t get a present,” said Balthasar Glättli, a member of the Swiss National Council.
Similarly, U.S. manufacturing activity has contracted between March and July, as the industry dealt with global economic uncertainty from the tariffs. Under former President Joe Biden, manufacturing was on the rise as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic subsided.
Fashion retailer Claire’s, a staple of shopping malls, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and partly blamed its financial struggles on the increased costs of doing business under Trump’s tariffs. Companies making bankruptcy filings are more frequently citing tariffs as a contributing factor.
As if that weren’t bad enough, federal jobs reports have been middling to outright bad amid Trump’s tariffs, but instead of correcting course, Trump has pushed debunked conspiracy theories about the data being manipulated.
Even Wall Street firms, which have to deal with reality and not conspiracy, have rejected his claims.